Nearly two and a half years ago, I fell in love.  I fell in love 140 characters at a time.  It was also on Twitter that I first corresponded with like-minded human resources and recruiting pros who like me were struggling with finding a voice and communicating to their organizations the value of social media in their organizational development and personal development.  Looking back those early days on Twitter connecting with Steve Boese, Trish McFarlane, Michael Long, Craig Fisher, Shauna Moerke, Ben Eubanks, and Stephen Geraghty-Harrison were magical, and HR Evolution reminds me of what it’s like to be at home.

It was on Twitter I fell in love and found my home.

Home is a place where you feel comfortable to be yourself, push your limits, boundaries, and ask questions.  HR Evolution is my home because it’s that kind of place.  These are my friends and my family who are making a statement and working together to share information, insights, and knowledge.

It’s hard for me to not be emotional when I hear this very interesting and engaging group of leaders speak at such a conference like this.  Because I’m filled with hope, promise, and inspiration driving me to continue writing, tweeting, and helping move forward this amazing industry.

It’s nice to come home, and I am reminded of the amazing people who are working to change this industry and share their own ideas often on their own dime.  Thank you for inspiring me and motivating me to do what I do every single day.  Thank you for making me feel at home.

This is the fourth HR Evolution.  Take a look at some of my past blogs about the different events over the last two years since the event’s inception.  

• 4 Ways to Wow Recruiters with Technology 

• HR Vendors vs. HR Practitioners

• The Unconference Eyebrow Wax

• Should HRCI Add a Social Media Component to the SPHR?

Photo Credit Renalogic.

Jet lagged and sleep deprived I write this as I’m waiting in the airport to board my flight home from HR Evolution.  It was once again a fantastic experience and so great to catch up with new and old friends.  It’s my third time around for HR Evolution.  What I like most besides the very open and frank conversation is the intermingling between HR Vendors and HR Practioners.

HR Vendors typically fill the vendor floor halls pimping their latest product.  Begging for your business card in exchange for cheap breath mint swag.  These vendors many times cut off from conversations and discussions that fill the session and after hour discussion of the average attendee.  Sometimes by choice but often due to the logistics of what a typical conference offers.

Granted, I don’t think that any attendee at a conference like HR Evolution is average, and neither is HR Demo.  Both conferences allow for fun, conversations, but serious business is done amongst the shadows, technology, and between cocktails.  Yup, it is that kind of place.

Now, you may remember my conversation about how I believe we’re all hr vendors,and I still believe we are.  But for a moment, let’s set aside my debate and talk about the HR Vendor and their role with the human resources community — consulting firms and corporate HR types in the trenches.

At events like HR Evolution and the upcoming HR Demo which I am attending as a member of their blog squad May 24-26th in Vegas, the conversations are less about the hard sell and more about relationships that lend to vendor and solution-based discussions.  Because let’s be honest, when it comes to most HR Vendors, they come off salesy, abrasive, with no background running a recruiting desk or HR team.

These type of conferences like HR Evolution and HR Demo allow for demos, dialogue, and discussions to occur.  Breaking down barriers.  Trust and relationships developed.  More conversation, discussion, and less hard sell tactics.  That’s why I’m excited to attend events like these.  HR professionals can talk freely, openly with Saas competitors or social media monitoring technology vendors.  Cutting through the crap and getting to what really matters conversations.  And conversations that are more about conversating then meeting a monthly quota.

Because let’s face it as a HR practitioner we need vendors.  I can’t process payroll myself and I sure as hell don’t want paper job applications.  I want solutions, and I need them now.  Because processing payroll with Excel spreadsheets and Quickbooks are so 1994.

Photo Credit Stor-It-Safe.

FTC Disclosure: I received compensation in the form of  travel accommodations and conference access  for mentioning HR Demo as a member of the conference blog squad in the above blog post. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

On Sunday, I arrived home from the HR Evolution Unconference held in Chicago, IL.  I spent the last 3 days reading and commenting on no less than 30 video posts, blog posts, and photo blogs detailing the event.  It was a whirlwind of conversations, bacon, social media, and HR all rolled into a two day event, and I loved every minute of it.

Unconferences themselves are a new frontier for many especially an event such as this.  HR Evolution 2 boasted an additional 80 new attendees compared to the first HR Evolution held in Louisville last November.  Unconferences are a gamble, a very loose set of rules and structure with only suggested topics and tracks that are audience and attendee driven.  Conversations are not scripted, powerpoints are not encouraged.  The direction is dictated by participants who drive the session with facilitators along for the ride.

An unconference can be scary.  It’s a new territory and adventure sometimes filled with pain, confusion, and buyer’s remorse.  Like any new idea, it can be painful when our security and structure that we have come to know and rely on is ripped away.

I served as co-moderator for a session alongside my friends and colleagues, Craig Fisher and Charee Klimek discussing the topic of being Outside of HR.  Like any good unconference session, it took on a life of its own.  The conversation was fantastic and in my opinion, flowed outside the topic.  That, however, is the beauty of an unconference.  No surveys or session reviews are needed.  Participants speak up and transform the discussion or move on to the next. It’s the Darwinian theory of a unconference.  Eat or be eaten.  Evolve and survive.  Not unlike the discussion that stemmed from our closing session urging us to move beyond the echo chamber.  Evolve or be eaten.

The new takes getting used to.  We digest, deconstruct, and evaluate the change reinventing ourselves and our thoughts, and over time we adapt enjoying the process.  So much so that we come back for more.  We come to anticipate the uncomfortableness, the pain, and change pushing ourselves to a new place.  And we like what we see.

This new place is where we measure all others, a standard or bar that has been raised.  Since attending my first unconference (Recruitfest!) almost a year ago, it is what I have used to measure and evaluate all others both traditional and nontraditional conference events including my own.

If evolving was easy, it wouldn’t be an HR Evolution.

Thanks to the attendees, facilitators, lurkers, and HR Evolution unconference planning committee.  You rocked it!

Photo Credit Mais Beauty Salon.

This most recent HR Carnival is hosted by Trish MacFarlane of HR Ring Leader and highlights all the blog posts discussing the recent HR Evolution (un)conference.  Check out the entire carnival here.

But first some background on the Carnival of HR.  The Carnival was started by Evil HR Lady and was created as a way to bring Human Resources bloggers together and highlight their best content to the blogging community.  Our current carnival keeper is HR Minion.  She coordinates the carnivals that move from HR blogger to blogger and generally keeps us in line.

If you are a regular reader of my blog, you know that I am very enthusiastic (to say the least) about HR Evolution and was a sponsor, attendee, as well as a leader for one of the breakout sessions.  The conference was a great first step in organizing our thoughts, generating some discussion, and getting to know each other offline, eyeball to eyeball.

Here are some highlights from the Carnival.

• The Red Recruiter’s post on Outside the Social Media Bubble was particularly intriguing.  He lists to major benefits of social media for HR:  1) Talent Acquisition 2) Learning. While I agree with him wholeheartedly, I am in belief that there is a third which is 3) Networking. Some may argue that this is related to Learning but in the new media and business world it is mostly all about who you know.
• Debbie J. Brown’s post about Outliers and an “un”conference was an interesting take on how and why HR Evolution brought 50 strangers together.  Building on Debbie’s post I belief that many of the (un)conference  participants are outliers in a sense.  We are different than the traditional HR community in how we communicate, learn, and network with one another using new media as a form of warm lead or introduction.
• And my favorite post of all was by Lyn Hoyt who explains the History of Bacon and HR.  The majority of (un)conference attendees wore bacon buttons during the conference.  There is a sort of weird obsession with bacon in our online HR community.  The strange obsession that tied in with the conference led me to secure the website, www.HRBacon.com.  I have no idea what I plan to do with the domain just yet so please send me your ideas and suggestions.

By all means, please visit Trish’s website and her HR Evolution Carnival post to learn more.  I’m excited to see what the next year has in store for the HR online community and the profession as a whole.  Look for the next Carnival of HR on November 25th at Mike VanDervort at The Human Race Horses.

Photo credit to Sellsius Real Estate Blog.

Like many of my fellow HR professionals this week, I have been busy reading all the fantastic blog posts related to the Human Resources (un)conference November 6-8th, 2009 in Louisville, KY.  I have been blown away with the take-a-ways and conversation that HR Evolution has so far generated.  I was particularly intrigued by our opening and closing sessions with regard to social media.

And then I had a thought. . . .

Should HRCI (and SHRM) add a social media component to the Senior Professional in Human Resources certification exam?

And then another thought. . .

Is social media really strategic?
By all means, please weight in, and I will post another blog that encapsulates all the discussion.  I’m looking forward to your comments.  (Really!)

Photo courtesy of PR Central

I find it fitting that the 20th anniversary of the falling of the Berlin Walls falls squarely one day after the end of the first ever Human Resource HR Evolution (un)conference.

The Human Resource industry is at an impasse.  For years, HR has been the voice to deliver the message often controlled by the actions and decisions of others far up the food chain or from the executive suite with or without our opinions or input.  Unfortunately, I have had to deliver my share of layoff announcements, reorganizations, and terminations to the employees I represented as a member of a company and business.

HR Evolution and social media are seeking to change that.  I seek to be free to engage others, express opinions, and have an opinion outside of the organization who I support.  As a collective group, we have the power to tear down the walls of the traditional vision of Human Resources and be free to be ourselves.  We certainly know that it won’t be easy and I know we will encounter some resistance along the way.

And yet I see this resistance as an opportunity to educate, develop relationships, and join the conversation with others both inside and outside the field of Human Resources.  I see an opportunity to engage executive teams and leaders or businesses and organizations as way to begin those conversations.

A little over twenty years ago I remember seeing video and pictures on the news as I watched President Ronald Reagan call for Mr. Gorbachev to “Tear down this wall.”  And twenty years ago today I also watched the whole world celebrate as the Berlin Wall was torn down.  At the time the wall signified oppression, control, and a divide.  And now the Berlin Wall means something completely different.  It stands for freedom, individuality, community, and possibility.  These were the very same things that brought 50 human resource professionals together at HR Evolution in Louisville, KY November 6-8, 2009.

While I don’t believe that the HR Evolution has the same historical significance that the Berlin Wall does, I do think that HR’s Berlin Wall is the same in a metaphorical sense.  The message from the HR Evolution (un)conference is clear, “Tear down this Wall.”

Photo credit Destination 360.